Grand Hotel — Page 2

I think the piece itself is trying to pack too much story with too many characters into too brief a running time. Consequently it comes off feeling slight and melodramatic. That said, I did enjoy it when I saw it at the Donmar a few weeks back. It closes tonight, actually.

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I saw a production of Grand Hotel recently at the Colony Theater in LA/Burbank - Jason Graae was a marvelous Kringelein - and they used a slightly cut version of the show to good effect. There were no Scullery Workers and their "Some Have, Some Have Not" was cut from the opening as was, later, Preysing's "Crooked Path" - the least effective number in the score, IMO - and Rafaella's "How Can I Tell Her", which I did miss. Grushinskaya's maudlin "Bonjour Amour" was replaced by a number from the original pre-Yeston score - which was frankly not much better. All in all though the cuts worked and the show - played without intermission - was terrific. Smaller companies should definitely check out this version.

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jrb_actor, I take your point but the Scullery Workers music is not inspired stuff and it's really just a nod to class consciousness, not a real theme of the show - unless you see the snub of Kringelein as more than anti-semitism. I believe the cuts were made in part to reduce cast and, therefore, cost, but as I said, the show worked this way, at least for me.

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JRB, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. There's snobbishness aplenty but not a whole lot of class-consciousness in the Marxian sense. The proletariat is represented only by the Scullery Workers and perhaps Flaemmchen and the singing waiters who have racial issues but do not appear to be class conscious in a political way. Most of the characters are middle class with the exception of the Baron who is the most socially enlightened person in the piece.

Re the German lyrics by the Scullery Workers near the end, I've never quite understood that, unless it's homage to Brecht/Weill in some way. Or is it that speaking the demotic - German - supposedly separates the workers further from their bosses?

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I saw the national tour with Tony Franciosa and Lillene Montivecchi (sp?)............my friends and I took turns keeping each other awake.........

GRAND HOTEL the musical was an excellent alternative to prescription sleepaids.

The performance of We'll Raise A Glass Together by Michael Jeter on the Tonys is probably one of the three best Tony award performances ever..........We watch that scene often, it and he are thrilling.....

But the show was endless and boring.

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The recent Colony production was amazing and got pretty much unanimous raves. I'm not familiar with the original, other than the cast recording, but the reinvisioning of the show by its most talented director was extremely effective. It was quite a hit!

eslgr8 - the fact that Jason Graae was one of the leads didn't hurt